29.6.11

Shooting starts this July

I'm not sure about this one. Isotropic Films have announced plans to adapt Franz Kafka's short story, Metamorphosis, into a film starring Nick Searcy. I had always hoped David Lynch or David Cronenberg might be tempted towards Kafka some day, not least for the admiration they have expressed for Kafka's work. (That is, of course, is we move beyond the fact that Kafka's story is virtually impossible to film.) Instead, we have a director and producer who see Gregor Samsa, travelling salesman, as Greg, high school teenager. I am guessing that the family are not financially dependent on 'Greg' in this version of the story.

From the above promotional clip, I have an impression that Kafka's subtle, tragic and darkly humorous tale has been re-cast as some kind of gory shoot-'em-up. The father figure, in the storyboards and script, seems not in the least emotionally upset to find his son's dismembered legs (a sensationalist scene in itself, absent from the original story). The father also seems to be in the habit of carrying a loaded firearm around the house with him. Worrying. Production is set to begin in July 2011:

"We are making a film with a very direct social message," Yohe said. "It's a metaphor for being different, change, and most importantly how fear can make us do harmful things to others and to ourselves."

Story focuses on a 17-year-old who wakes up one morning to an inexplicable illness that transforms him into the unimaginable -- a hideous, human-sized cockroach. His parents come home to discover him afraid and hiding from his new form and are now faced with the decision of accepting a monster in their suburban home or exterminating their own son. [Read More]